Introducing the Paragon Championship

Sixteen players, $500 in cash prizes and one double-elimination tournament to decide who the first ever Paragon Champion will be. This is the Paragon Championship – the final battle ground in the Paragon Games Tournament Series.

The Competitors

Presenting the inaugural class of Paragon Championship competitors!

Scoring themselves qualifications by winning a Paragon Opens we have William Dyson, Denis Mullins, James O'Rourke, John-Paul Kelley and Dillon Kikkawa. Then we have 11 players who earned their qualifications by being the next best Paragon Points leaders. From left to right, we have Simon Linabury, Rory Bolt, Ben Bullus, David Jacquier, Christopher Turner, Colin Parton, Jacob Golding, Andrew Woodyard, Jake Sims, Tyler Parkins and Jonathon Zapasnik.

All of these players have demonstrated exceptional skill and dedication to the game by making it this far and we can't wait to see them battling it out at the Championship!

The Tournament Structure

We thought long and hard about how to structure the Paragon Championship and finally settled on running a double-elimination tournament with a mix of Standard and Modern constructed. We decided this would be the best way to send the Tournament Series off by making sure we included both formats we covered in our Opens and producing an interesting structure for both players and those following at home. By alternating between Modern and Standard in the first five rounds, we're aiming to reduce the chance that a player loses two matches in a row because they're not as comfortable in one format or the other. This way, all player have a better shot at playing as much Magic as possible. We also decided to use seeds, based on Paragon Points, for pairings. This was to reward those who earned more Paragon Points and make sure the highest points scorers won't meet too early in the tournament and knock each other out!

Another thing to note – the player with the highest seed will get to choose to play or draw at the beginning of every match of the tournament. That's right from Round 1 all the way to the final!

We can't wait to bring the Paragon Championship to you, both players and everyone who'll be following along. Running the Paragon Games Tournament Series has been a blast and we're looking forward wrapping our first season up in style on Saturday!

Remember that you're welcome to come along and watch the action in person at Three D6 or tune in to watch the Championship live at twitch.tv/ParagonGamesLive from 10am AEST (UTC +10). See you then!